Lateral Tool Transfer

Identifies the creation or change of a Windows executable file over network shares. Adversaries may transfer tools or other files between systems in a compromised environment.

Rule type: eql

Rule indices:

logs-endpoint.events.*
winlogbeat-*
logs-windows.*

Severity: medium

Risk score: 47

Runs every: 5 minutes

Searches indices from: now-9m (Date Math format, see also Additional look-back time)

Maximum alerts per execution: 100

Tags:

Elastic
Host
Windows
Threat Detection
Lateral Movement

Version: 3 (version history)

Added (Elastic Stack release): 7.11.0

Last modified (Elastic Stack release): 7.16.0

Rule authors: Elastic

Rule license: Elastic License v2

Rule query

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sequence by host.id with maxspan=30s [network where event.type ==
"start" and process.pid == 4 and destination.port == 445 and
network.direction : ("incoming", "ingress") and network.transport ==
"tcp" and source.address != "127.0.0.1" and source.address != "::1"
] by process.entity_id /* add more executable extensions here if
they are not noisy in your environment */ [file where event.type in
("creation", "change") and process.pid == 4 and file.extension :
("exe", "dll", "bat", "cmd")] by process.entity_id

Threat mapping

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Framework: MITRE ATT&CK^TM

Tactic:
- Name: Lateral Movement
- ID: TA0008
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/tactics/TA0008/
Technique:
- Name: Lateral Tool Transfer
- ID: T1570
- Reference URL: https://attack.mitre.org/techniques/T1570/

Rule version history

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Version 3 (7.16.0 release)

Updated query, changed from:

sequence by host.id with maxspan=30s [network where event.type ==
"start" and process.pid == 4 and destination.port == 445 and
network.direction == "incoming" and network.transport == "tcp" and
source.address != "127.0.0.1" and source.address != "::1" ] by
process.entity_id /* add more executable extensions here if they are
not noisy in your environment */ [file where event.type in
("creation", "change") and process.pid == 4 and file.extension :
("exe", "dll", "bat", "cmd")] by process.entity_id

Version 2 (7.12.0 release)

Formatting only

« Lateral Movement via Startup Folder Launch Agent Creation or Modification and Immediate Loading »